posted
"The oxygen-poor "dead zone" off the Louisiana and Texas coasts isn't quite as big as predicted this year, but it is still the third-largest ever mapped, a scientist said Saturday."
"The 7,900-square-mile area with almost no oxygen, a condition called hypoxia, is about the size of Connecticut and Delaware together. The Louisiana-Texas dead zone is the world's second-largest hypoxic area".
"More storms than normal may have reduced hypoxia by keeping the waters roiled, Rabalais said."
"Hypoxia occurs when fresh water pouring in from the Mississippi River floats above the heavier salt water in the Gulf. Algae die and fall to the bottom, where their decay uses oxygen faster than it is brought down from the surface. Eventually, the lower layer holds too little oxygen for fish and other aquatic life."
"Nitrogen, from sources including fertilizer, erosion and sewage, speeds up the process by feeding algae."
Not understood a century ago, we know know that wetlands serve as a means of "cleaning" sewage and agricultural drainage, in filtering out harmful chemicals and pollutants, nitrogen in particular.
Most of the swamps and potholes we drained and filled through the 19th and 20th century are not needed by us at all and need to be restored. Sewage and agricultural drainage, every where possible, should be forced to travel through those that remain and reclaimed wetlands (and perhaps artificially structured wetlands) before going into lakes and rivers. It's the cheapest sewage cleaning there is.
This is, until the magic of of space travel presents itself, our only lifeboat!
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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